Shall We Dance?
by yahoo-chloe
Summary: When Rosalie buys the happy couple a dance lesson as a pre-wedding gift, Bella is entered into her own personal hell. At least she knows her faults won't be troubling her for much longer, but does she know how much Edward truly loves her being human? E/B


Shall We Dance

Shall We Dance?

"Dance lessons?" I asked, barely concealing my distaste.

Edward just smiled, knocking me breathless with his celestial contentment. He didn't even have to look at me- he kept his eyes firmly on the road ahead as we drove towards my idea of living hell.

"Isn't it customary for the bride and groom," He stated aloud, stressing the last three words, "To learn something for their first dance together as man and wife?"

I opened my mouth, waiting for a perfectly formed argument to pop out- but I was disappointed. I looked wildly around the car, trying to focus on anything but the two tickets for an hour long dance session that I held between clasped fingers. Edward began to notice my panic, but he was too late to head off a rant now.

"That may be true," I began, trying to copy his perfect level of articulation and failing miserably, "but there isn't much customary about you and I." I let out a loud, disgruntled sigh. "This is prom all over again."

"You can't expect me to do all the work," he pointed out in a reasonable tone of voice. "I know you struggle with dancing bu-"

"Struggle!" I exclaimed, cutting him off mid sentence. "I _struggle _walking across a room without falling flat on my face. 'Struggle' does not begin to describe how I feel about dancing!"

Edward shrugged, his smile fading slightly now. As if in reaction to our mood, the car began to slow too. Or at least, it became slow for Edward's driving. The needle drifted to just below seventy.

"Rosalie bought the tickets, as pre-wedding gifts. I thought it only polite to use them." He explained, deliberately not looking in my direction this time. He then took a hand off the steering wheel and lifted them out of my grasp. "No matter, I'm sure she'll understand. She's seen you in gym, too." Edward continued, muttering the last part.

I could see that I'd upset him. The chance to miss it out, to just spend the afternoon back at home with him and his family would be bliss. The idea hovered in my mind, golden and unattainable for a few seconds. I shook my head to dispel the thought, and gave in.

"I suppose it's not a terrible idea. If it reduces the chance of me falling over on the day…" I said, trying to sound a little bit enthusiastic. "I can't have you doing all the work now, can I?"

My voice became a little higher in the last sentence as I struggled to keep the tone even. I thought I saw something in his expression shift a little, and bit my lip tightly to stop anything else coming out that would have an adverse effect on his mood.

"Bella," He sighed, in his flawless angel's voice. "You know I didn't mean it like that." Edward opened his mouth again to argue, but I just shook my head slowly.

"Didn't you?" I asked quietly. I lifted my arm from my seat, and trailed my fingers slowly across the underside of his jaw. Understanding, he turned his exasperated eyes to meet mine. We stayed like that for a few seconds, locked in our wordless embrace until I broke the silence. "You'd be right to."

Almost angry again, Edward looked back out of the front windscreen again. His near-white lips pressed into a strong, hard line and he didn't answer for a long time. He put the tickets down on the arm rest between us and flicked off the radio, which had been giving out whiny pop songs as background noise. I pulled back my hand and crossed my arms resolutely. I then settled further into my seat, and had almost forgotten our conversation when he spoke again. I had been thinking of all the catastrophes I could manage to bring about in an hour long dance session…

"That's madness, Bella." Edward threw out angrily. His hands were gripping more tightly than usual onto the wheel, bleaching his already white knuckles of the little colour they had left. "I simply meant that you can't expect me to drag you across the dance floor like I did when your leg was broken. I wasn't referring to anything else."

"I doubt I'll learn a perfect rumba in an hour session anyway," I retorted sarcastically.

"Just stand on your own two feet and let me do the leading, is that too much to ask?" Edward sighed. His eyes flickered over to glance at me, and I could tell he was trying to stifle a laugh. Whether it was just at our argument, or at the idea of me doing the rumba, I couldn't tell.

"Just wait until I'm a vampire." I commented. "Then I won't _need _you to lead me, just to stop me tripping over my own feet."

The laugh died on his lips. Edward took his right hand back off the steering wheel and took my hand, forcing me to stop crossing my arms. He then lifted my wrist to his frozen lips. I could tell he was feeling the pulse that beat there. Perhaps he was already counting the beats my heart had left in his mind.

He then tilted his head slightly, so that he was looking straight into my eyes through his long eyelashes. I shivered, but it had nothing to do with the temperature of the car.

"That doesn't mean I won't miss doing it." He told me slowly. His expression cleared as we pulled into the car park of a building at the side of the road. A white sign over the doorway read 'Karen's School of Dance' with a telephone number listed beneath it.

It was a funeral march, walking to the entrance doors. I tripped over a loose rock on the way in. Edward said nothing when he caught me.

Karen turned out to be a bossy woman in her late forties. Her greying hair still had hints of blonde underneath it. It was only us and two other couples, who were also engaged, so there wasn't much to keep her distracted. I began to dread her claps, which told the entire group that someone was making a mistake.

"Bella," She began exasperatedly, "When he steps _forward, _you step _back._ That is the point of a _waltz_." She pushed me aside, for what felt like the hundredth time this lesson and pushed herself into Edward's grasp. Gracefully, they did a prefect waltz around the room that caused one of the couples to applaud them. I gave them a dirty look, blushing tomato red, and waited for her to move aside.

She gave Edward a slight nod as she did so, enquiring politely whether he had ever entered any ballroom dancing competitions. He just smiled and shook his head, obviously anxious to get back to me and gloat.

"Show-off," I muttered angrily to him as the music started again. He took a step back, smiling smugly, as I tried to purposefully tread on his foot.

"Better, Bella!" Karen congratulated me with a smile. I looked back at Edward, with a wicked grin, and quickened my step.

"This isn't really meant to be a dance of such passion, Bella." He joked, as we whizzed around the small dance hall faster than any of the other couples. Karen's face turned sour, but it didn't take long for us to make an emergency stop. I caught my leg on a chair which had been pushed against the wall. Edward caught me in his iron grip before any part of me had the chance to come to harm, but he was laughing loudly as he did so.

"Patience, respect and love," Karen called across the room to us as she decided to intervene. She clapped in time with each word, causing me to grind my teeth in annoyance. "The three things needed for both a good waltz _and _a good relationship."

She started towards Edward again, to show me where I was going wrong, but then she stopped. For the first time, she noticed the engagement ring that looped around the third finger on my left hand.

"Aren't you two awfully young to be getting married?" She asked in a surprised tone of voice. She must have thought that Edward had brought me here on some twisted idea of a date, not realising that we were here for the same reason as the other couples.

"I don't think that's any of your business." I replied quickly, surprised to find that I could blush any more. The wedding was already a touchy subject for me- an hour of enforced dancing on top of that had not improved my mood.

Edward gave me a disapproving look for my rudeness, whilst Karen muttered, "Sorry dear…" She didn't even try to hide the obvious glance at my stomach she gave. She seemed to think this was some sort of shot-gun, teenage pregnancy engagement. My lips curled into a grin as I wondered what she would think if she knew what was really going to happen on my honeymoon.

She wandered off to help one of the other pairs, so Edward and I were stood alone. He took my hand once more, his chin aloft, and placed his other hand on my waist. I just tried to put my head on his shoulder, but we were slightly too far apart for me to do so comfortably.

His eyes were far away, either thinking about something he had heard in her thoughts or read in my expression. We stayed almost on the spot, repeating the same movements Karen had shown us half an hour before. I was just waiting for today to be over.

Suddenly, the music stopped. It changed, into something faster. I tried to turn around, but Edward had a tight grip on me. I stared up, surprised, to read his expression. He was suddenly elated, my favourite crooked smile brightening up his marble features.

"Quickstep," He purred in my ear, and suddenly we were doing a very different sort of dance.

My feet were doing something I'd never taught them to do- Edward nudged them faster than Karen could see so it seemed like we were both doing the rapid, swaying motions the music asked for. He threw me to the side, gently as I could imagine, but with the illusion of speed and haste. I twirled like a professional in his arms, my heart in my mouth from a mixture of his joy and my sudden talent. He pulled me back into his embrace, and I clung to his shirt- unable to believe the speed at which we were moving across the hall floor.

I turned away from him, and his hands lingered on my waist. He danced around me so we were facing once more- my feet were on fire as I somehow kept up with his staccato steps. I gasped, as his lips grazed my ear, but we kept perfect time. I never wanted to stop coiling, writhing, spinning around him in a way that fit the song exactly. It was as if the music was being played to fit our movements, not the other way around. I forgot about Karen. I forgot about the wedding. I forgot about how angry I had been in the car on the way here. Edward flung me to the side, again, and I moved with him instead of against him. I wasn't resistant anymore. As my spin came to an end in perfect time with the fading strains of the song's final chords, I burst in to paroxysms of helpless, breathless laughter and fell into his waiting arms.

His amber eyes were only too quick to meet mine. I heard the stunned silence of the other couples and smiled. His icy lips were suddenly on mine, and the sweet taste of victory and bliss was evident on his breath. We were loathe to end the embrace, but I was short of breath as it was. Edward pulled back first and I slowly opened my eyes, anxious to keep this moment stretching out for as long as humanly possible.

"Now _that _was a dance of passion," He murmured ardently to me, sweeping a strand of hair behind my ear that had gone wild in our frenzied dance. The passion was there, still, between us. Then, like the music, it too faded away. My heart rate slowed and Edward's expression became conserved and casual once more. He kissed me, not as strongly as he had when we had just finished dancing and then pulled away, keeping his careful boundaries, and I lost myself in his golden gaze.

I wondered too, if our lives would be like this. Fits of short-lived happiness set against the monotony, passion on a background of conserved every day life. I supposed that it had to be that way. I tried to push a sudden tirade of thought away, but the questions had to be asked… Would he tire of me? When there were no Volturi, no monsters with a score to settle chasing on our tales? When I was finally his, with no Mike or Jacob as competition (though in my eyes, they never were anything of the kind), would the thrill still be there? With our futures forever entwined, no eventual parting on the threatening horizon, no growing old and learning about life the hard way, I couldn't see what there would there be to keep our lives interesting. With me beautiful, unbreakable, there would be no risk. With Edward so used to saving me, how would that affect our relationship?

Then with a flash, I remembered the two black haired children I had seen in my Jacob daydream, running away from me towards the woods. I would never feel what Renée felt when she had heard my first words, listened to what I had done on my first day of school, made me burnt toast to eat on the school bus. A small voice in my head asked if the knowledge that I could never be a mother, never be more than a high-school senior would have its effect on our relationship

I was still looking into Edward's eyes when the last thought came into my mind. I shook my head infinitesimally- I had already made my choice. An eternity with Edward was more than anything I could ever wish for, he was worth everything I was giving up, and so much more. I put my arms around his neck and pulled myself up to his lips for the millionth, and definitely not the last, time.

"Bella Marie Cullen," I breathed, when he pulled me up into standing position again. Edward looked up quizzically at the sound, and then realised that I was trying it on for size. His answering look was solemn yet somehow happy, filled with Karen's three requisites- respect, patience and love.

"I do." He smiled gently in reply, spinning me once more into his wide open arms.


End file.
